The following structure has been conventionally known as this kind of metering apparatus.
A conventional metering apparatus has a metering container including an inlet in an upper end and a horizontal outlet in an upper side portion, a switch valve for opening and closing the inlet of the metering container, and an upward discharge pipe connected to the horizontal outlet, and is structured such that the metering container has an upper tube, a lower tube fitted to and covered on the upper tube so as to be freely adjusted in a vertical position, and a porous body provided in a lower end of the lower tube and not allowing a powder body having a set magnitude to pass through but allowing a gas to pass through (refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-148092).
The conventional metering apparatus mentioned above has the following disadvantage.
Since the porous body (which does not allow the powder body having the set magnitude to pass through but allows the gas to pass through) is provided in the lower end of the lower tube, it is impossible to flow the powder body into the metering container from an external portion of the porous body, so that there is a disadvantage that it is impossible to use the metering container itself as a part of a transport pipe (in other words, it is impossible to feed the powder body within the metering container of another metering apparatus to a reservoir tank or the like via the metering container).